


not meat nor drink

by Eithe



Series: Love Is Not All [2]
Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, I'm pretty sure this is light angst but several friends yelled 'how dare' so now I'm not sure, Prompt Fic, mentions of past abuse - nothing specific but I wanna warn for that just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:14:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eithe/pseuds/Eithe
Summary: She doesn’t realize she has expectations of her second marriage, entering into it.
Relationships: Lyon/Revaire Widow
Series: Love Is Not All [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760212
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	not meat nor drink

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "what do you do with tenderness when all you expect is fury?" for Valya/Lyon  
> Crossposted from tumblr.
> 
> Apparently I'm gonna keep cribbing lines from Edna St. Vincent Millay's Sonnet XXX to title things for Valeriya until I run out of words.

She doesn’t realize she has expectations of her second marriage, entering into it. She doesn’t realize until a thought catches Lyon in the middle of supper one night and he rises, all at once, to his full height, and she goes shock-still and cold, like she’s been doused in ice water.

Her husband strides out of the room, mind already out the door, intent on finding the book that will check their disparate recollections against the source, and Valeriya takes several heartbeats trying to remember how to breathe, how to unclench her hand well enough to make use of her eating utensils.

Maybe not the second. Her stomach feels as if it’s buried under the floorboards somewhere, and full of gravel.

Lyon comes back before she’s mastered herself; he begins speaking from the hall, returning to their conversation before he’s cleared the door, but the moment he can see her his steps and words both halt, abruptly.

She tries to relax into poise, to smile as if nothing is amiss. She was so good at that, once – but she’s never been able to lie to him. Perhaps it is even fortunate; if he had been less sure of her, maybe he’d have believed the rumors.

He’s frowning, brow furrowed, looking troubled, and she has to say this, because it is true, and he needs to know that it is true:

“I know you wouldn’t. But it takes time to unlearn fear.”

There was a dog in her first husband’s house that flinched from every raised hand, even those that only meant to offer a pat or a treat. The body remembers pain and fear, and learns its lessons well. It does not consult her mind or her heart in these matters.

She knows he wouldn’t. She loves him for it. But the animal part of her does not trust, yet, that she is safe.

She never has been, before.

He puts his hand, palm up, on the table; an invitation but not a demand. She places her own in it, marveling again that she is here. She has been many things; unwanted daughter, tormented child-bride, vilified widow.

And now, beloved wife.

She smiles at him, meaning it, now, with her whole heart, and sees the tension ease from his stiff expression.

She doesn’t know what to do with tenderness. It is the custom of a foreign land, but she is no visitor; this is her home, now. She squeezes his hand, and then returns to her dinner, to the conversation they’d been having. She can’t very well cry with love for him over a course of pickles and rice.


End file.
